Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for generating Web experience for mobile devices on-the-fly at runtime.
Background
Web sites are widely used today to provide content to users over a computer network, such as the Internet. Experts predict that by 2014, most Internet traffic in the United States will be conducted using mobile devices. Many Web sites however are still designed with only a non-mobile device (e.g., a desktop computer) in mind. When such Web sites are viewed on a mobile device, extensive pinching, zooming, and scrolling may be required for a user to view content on Web pages of the Web sites. Thus, it may be unduly cumbersome for the user to interact with these Web sites via the mobile device.
Techniques have been proposed to generate Web experience for users of mobile devices via mobile-optimized Web sites. However, there are issues with conventional mobile-optimized Web sites. For example, content providers traditionally deploy and maintain two separate Web sites: the mobile optimized Web site, which is designed for a mobile device, and another Web site, which is designed for a desktop device. It is not desirable to implement two such Web sites because of relatively high engineering costs. The burden is especially onerous for a content provider who has multiple websites with frequent changes in content. Moreover, because each Web site has its own implementation, user experience differs between the desktop version and the mobile version.
In addition, mobile devices are becoming increasingly diverse, and a Web site version that looks and performs well on one device type may look and perform poorly on another device type. It would be impractical, and potentially impossible, to create Web site designs for each of the major device types.